News

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg NAACP
and the AFL-CIO will also honor Martin Luther King and as stand up for public
service workers’ rights at a rally and picket line on April 4.

The “We Are One” rally will begin
at noon at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center.

On April 4, 1968, King was
assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., where he had gone to stand with sanitation
workers who were demanding the right to bargain collectively for improved
working conditions. The workers were trying to form a union with the American
Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees.

Those workers’ message was: “I am
a man. I have rights. I am human, and I am equal to you in many ways. I may not
have political power, but I’m human and have rights and ought to be respected,”
according to James Andrews, president of the North Carolina American Federation
of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations.

There will be 15 minutes of
silence at the April 4 rally outside of the state capitol in Raleigh to depict
the message sent by those 1,300 sanitation workers. “We will also be sending
the message that Dr. King lost his life by being in Memphis standing with
them,” Andrews said.

“Just a few months ago Americans
came together as one nation working together at 10-2-10 to show unity and
solidarity,” said Rev. Kojo Nantambu, president of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg
NAACP, referring to the tens of thousands of people who marched on Washington
for living wages, quality schools, and public employees’ bargaining
rights.

“Since that time right-wing
extremists have escalated their attacks against the family and the worker. This
time the attacks have been launched on our policemen, firefighters, nurses,
caregivers, teachers, students and administrators, and in some cities against
our subway workers, staff, and bus operators,” he added. “This attack on
hard-working American families cannot be allowed to prevail. This is a moral
struggle in our country about who we are as a nation and what we believe in.”

The April 4 rallies are part of a
national movement started in part as a response to Republican efforts to strip
away collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin, the once blue state that has
been supportive of labor union rights. Union activists have rallied across the
nation to fight the curtailing of Wisconsin’s collective bargaining rights, but
North Carolina is one of two states where collective bargaining for public
sector employees is outlawed.

“We’re seeing the amount of folks
around the country and other states standing in solidarity with that group of
workers whose rights are being taken away in Wisconsin, but also where
Wisconsin workers are fighting in fact to hold onto collective bargaining
rights we’re highlighting the fact that in 1959 our rights were taken away from
us,” Andrews said.